ON EARLY YEARS IN SANTA ROSA 



I had hesitated between San Jose and Santa Rosa 

 as the location best suited to my purposes, and 

 had decided on the latter place. It has sometimes 

 been thought that my work might have been car- 

 ried on to better advantage if I had settled in the 

 larger town of San Jose, that being in the midst 

 of a great fruit-producing region; but, on the 

 whole, as elsewhere recorded, I have had reason 

 to be satisfied with the choice that was made. 



In that day, however, Santa Rosa was but a 

 small village, offering comparatively few attrac- 

 tions. It had not even a sidewalk. There were 

 no vineyards, no orchards, no ornamental trees. 

 There were wheat fields in the surrounding coun- 

 tiy, and these gave opportunity for work in the 

 summer with harvesting and threshing crews. For 

 the rest, about the only available employment was 

 the driving of teams of oxen or mules in breaking 

 the soil with gang-plows. 



Unfortunately my physical strength was not 

 adequate to either of these tasks. So I found 

 myself almost without means, in a strange land, 

 far from home and friends, and there was no 

 obvious way in which to enter on the specific work 

 that was contemplated. For a time it was even 

 difficult to earn enough to meet immediate needs. 



It was necessary to give up all thought of 

 entering immediately on the work of gardening. 



[65] 



